Tom Martin: By now, Iowans should know

Sunday

Skip the issues and keep your eyes and ears on the candidates. That’s my advice for people in Iowa, and soon Illinois, trying to figure who to support for United States president.

Skip the issues and keep your eyes and ears on the candidates. That’s my advice for people in Iowa, and soon Illinois, trying to figure who to support for United States president.

Issues are important, but most of us simply aren’t experts on policy. We are, however, good at reading people. We do it daily. Some of us are better than others, but we all learn to pick up signs, visual and verbal, that help us assess a person. We get a sense about people, usually through a variety of queues including eye contact, mannerisms, posture, voice modulation and physical presence.

We do it so often, most of us can’t even explain how we arrive at our conclusions. We might say, “I don’t like the looks of him,” or “I don’t get a good vibe from her.” When this happens, our senses have picked up something that doesn’t line up. The more we’re around that person, the better read we can get on him or her.

That’s why it interests me to hear all this talk about issues and where candidates stand on them as the political teapot prepares to boil in Iowa on Jan. 3. It is said that voters need to know all about the issues. Likewise, the media are often scolded for not spending enough time covering the issues.

Issues. Issues. Issues.

But the media are responding to the public. And most people don’t want to wade through policy stances of each candidate any more than they want to have their wisdom teeth extracted (the teeth take less time).

Issues are cumbersome and foreign to voters. Sure, they may understand where a candidate stands on legalized abortion, but do people really know the differences in proposed immigration or health care policies among a half dozen candidates?

Plus, who’s to say the politician’s stance will survive the election. Remember when President George W. Bush campaigned against nation building? Oops. Or that he is a uniter not a divider? Holy creation of red and blue states, Batman!

And Bush is not alone. Politicians are constantly either changing their stance on an issue or compromising in order to create some progress on that issue. And sometimes growth requires people to change their views.

Though much is made about President Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation, he didn’t pledge to issue such executive orders during his first presidential campaign. In fact, he didn’t campaign for president in 1859. His handlers did that for him. It was an astute mind, a steady hand, courage and moral compass that helped Lincoln to that proclamation.

Despite all this talk of issues, a recent Harris Poll found that people don’t base their votes on politician’s stances. The poll found that “one common misperception is that voters consider where each candidate stands on each issue and then vote for the candidate whose positions on the issues are the closest to their own. In reality, most voters have only a vague sense of the candidates’ policy positions, and their votes are determined by many other factors, including their feelings about the candidates, perceptions of their characters and personalities and their track records.”

People use what they know: people.

Which is why having a single state, such as Iowa, be first with a presidential primary election is smart. For the past six months (or four years for John Edwards) Iowans couldn’t throw a stone without plunking a politician. Candidates walk among them. Iowans get to see the hopefuls, listen to their speeches, ask them questions and shake their hands. That kind of physical evidence, especially when combined with research (read newspapers and watch CSPAN) about the candidates, is invaluable to voters.

In the end, voters need to pick the best leader, not the person with the best stances.

Tom Martin is editor of The Register-Mail. Contact him at tmartin@register-mail.com or call 343-7181 Ext. 250.

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